Karen Shay West's Home Page

OBJECTIVE

• Software engineering position in exciting high technology field


• More than 18 years experience with embedded technologies, C programming and hardware-software interaction.


• Numerous other technical skills and programming languages along with business skills.


• Background in Electrical and Computer Engineering


• M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997


• B.S., Boston University, 1987


• In between work and contracts, I stayed current on numerous technical and business skills and and other business and law humanities. I now wish to return to high tech job sector preferably on a permanent basis, but also by contract.

EXPERIENCE

• JOB SPRING PARTNERS / MOTION RECRUITMENT APPLICATION DEVELOPER CONTRACTOR AT FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF BOSTON, Boston, Massachusetts: 5/2018 to 7/2018
  • Assisted some Federal Reserve Bank Application Developers in merging two code bases in order to use one credit card for military shopping purposes that were sometimes challenged by no network situations. The products involved were Bluebirds for card transactions, kiosks and ATM style money processing, and vending machines. I tweaked, added to both code bases and helped integrate the code between the Navy's version of their card and the Army and other military base cards to use one API for all cards. Although the code had network communications, sometimes the military would require communicating over RS232 serial ports or a modem in order to communicate.
  
  
  • I integrated their code for their serial communications and added access by the user interface widget and had to learn 2 different code bases to do this integration. We programmed in C/C++ for the application, and Qt for the widgets. I posted my ticket investigation reports on Sharepoint, and shared tickets for this work that were split into Agile 6 week Sprints with coworkers in Jira, while our code base was managed by Bit Bucket. We participated in the multiple Agile update meetings each week with teams dispersed in Boston, Massachusetts, Omaha, Nebraska and Tampa, Florida.
  
  
• FULL SPECTRUM SOFTWARE CONTRACTOR AT AMAZON ROBOTICS, Westboro, Massachusetts,Senior Software Engineering Contractor: 8/2017 to 10/2017
  • Static Analysis and Unit Testing C code using the LDRA (Liverpool Data Research Associates) tool to pass 61508 safety standard for the vest badges that Amazon Fulfillment Center workers wear to tell the warehouse robots not to run them over, as well as for the new European warehouse robot’s user interface code.
  
  
  • Git and Jira were used for code management.
  
  
• COURSE WORK AND PROJECTS IN BETWEEN WORK, CONTRACTS, North Easton, Massachusetts, 8/2009 to Present
  • Explore this web page for details! Expanded and Reviewed Technical Skill Set, and Explored Business, Law, Economics and Entrepreneurial Humanities
  
  
  • ASSOCIATED ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS, Ayer, Massachusetts, Sept to Oct. 2015, Embedded software contract
  
  
• DRAPER LABS, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 4/2007 to 8/2009: Senior Technical Staff Member, Embedded Software, Test Coordination, Guidance, Navigation and Controls
  • Spearheaded simulation and functional testing operations in the open and closed loop control systems simulators for the US Navy.
  
  


• MOTOROLA, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1/2005 to 4/2007, Applications Integration Embedded Software Support Engineer
  • Authored multiple sample applications in C to debug interface between set-top-box firmware and vendor applications.
  
  
  • Guaranteed that 100% of set-top-boxes could download and debug firmware and applications.
  
  


• OASIS SEMICONDUCTOR, Waltham, Massachusetts, 5/2002 to 12/2004, Embedded Firmware and Quality Assurance (QA) Software Engineer
  • Designed and supported C code for printer and scanner software/firmware
  
  
  • Tested software/hardware for all-in-one printer, scanner, copier and fax machines
  
  
  • Was the 25th employee at Oasis Semiconductor, working as an embedded software engineer in a start up environment
  
  


• MOTOROLA, Mansfield, Massachusetts, 8/2000 to 5/2002, Embedded Senior Software Engineer
  • Wrote USB, Ethernet and HomeRF Wireless drivers in C for BSD UNIX operating system.
  
  
  • Worked on Broadcom-based chipset and VxWorks embedded RTOS, used in Motorola's core gateway.
  
  

EARLY CAREER: 1/1986 to 8/1986 (co-op), 7/1987 to 8/2000 (with graduate School 1992-1997)

• AMERICAN MEGATRENDS, INC, Norcross, GA, 11/1998 to 8/2000
  • Software Engineer, USB products.
  
  


• SCIENTIFIC-ATLANTA, Norcross,GA, 3/1998 to 11/1998
  • Software Engineer, Satellite TV embedded C with PSOS embedded OS.
  
  


• TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, TX, 10/1997 to 2/1998
  • ASIC & Software Engineer Support.
  
  


• GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH INSTITUTE, Pittsburgh,PA, 1/1995 to 8/1997
  • Part-time Research Assistant, Department of Transportation (DOT) database Rally software
  
  
  • C/C++ development
  
  


• CDI CORPORATION: Nuclear Reactor at Westinghouse, Pittsburgh,PA, 5/1994 to 8/1994
  • Software Testing.
  
  


• PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER AT MELLON INSTITUTE, Pittsburgh,PA, 5/1993 to 8/1993
  • Summer Intern Software Engineer, focusing on parallel processing, software performance and testing.
  
  


• CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY, Pittsburgh, PA, 8/1992 to 5/1993
  • Graduate Research Assistant for networks and communications course.
  
  
  • Tested and developed MACH microkernel to support DOS emulation, and the Coda File System.
  
  


• DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION, Littleton, MA, 7/1987 to 8/1992
  • Senior Software Engineer for Local Area Networking Group.
  
  
  • MAC and PHY chip test
  
  
  • C test code for hardware diagnostics
  
  
  • Embedded C firmware
  
  
  • Won RAP (Recognition and Performance) cash award.
  
  


• IBM, Kingston,NY, 1/1986 to 8/1986
  • Software-Hardware Co-op, working on the Intrepid Project to develop a math coprocessor.